This article by Garrett M. Graff helps to show us that the US, indeed the entire world, has very little "resilience". All of our systems are moving the world toward less and less resilience and THAT is a problem - not just for pandemics (yes there will be more) but also for the much bigger issue of Climate Change. My hope is that this pandemic will be a wake-up call for the world and that we start thinking about and acting on Climate Change issues with the same urgency as we now are with the pandemic. Although I'm not holding my breath on that one.
The article is very American centric and admittedly the impact of the pandemic could be worse in the US than most other countries of the world, from the number of deaths to the impact on the economy. How the rest of the world manages Covid-19 is going to be equally important as the US. Currently, I am vacillating from day to day from Optimism to Pessimism. One thing that can quickly change the entire trajectory of the pandemic is the speed with which the world develops and deploys an effective vaccine and /or treatment for Covid-19. There is an unprecedented amount of work going on now and there are many promising avenues of research. We could have a vaccine for Covid-19 developed and deployed faster than any vaccine in the history of modern medicine. If this happens, then things will bounce back pretty quickly. The longer before it happens, the slower the recovery. Bouncing back pretty quickly does not mean everything will go back to the way it was. There have been lots of dislocations, some of which will never recover. But there will be lots of new business opportunities that contribute significantly to the economy. Money is cheap and the US Feds could just print more money to bail out the States. Economists have said for years now that such debt is not sustainable and that we are eventually in for a day of reckoning. Most don't understand why we have not had one yet. So now they are starting to think that we can go on for a long time with the Feds funding everything with little or no short term consequences. Of course, if inflation kicks in, then we will have a financial collapse that will make 2007/2008 and the pandemic look like a picnic. No one seems to know why inflation has not kicked in long ago, especially when unemployment was below 4% in the US. I have done a lot of reading on Covid-19 and have concluded that the economy can get back to work pretty quickly under the following conditions:
People say that we do not have enough masks or resources for testing or tracing. My answer to that "bullshit". If we can shut down the economy and take on billions of dollars of new debt in Canada and trillions of dollars around the world, we can muster the resources to do these things very quickly at a fraction of the cost of shutting down the economy. I've been after the government (sending emails) for over a month to do #6 & 7 in particular. I do agree 100% with the last sentence in the article. However, if my assessment of the 7 steps needed to control Covid-19 while opening the economy is correct, then things could get going pretty quickly. And it is not just my assessment. There are now a lot of scientific studies that indicate that such steps can work if the approach is coordinated and everyone complies. Americans by nature will not comply easily and have this "do your own thing" attitude which is not conducive to a coordinated approach. Americans will have more difficulty with this than any other nation. On the other hand, Americans are some of the most inventive people on earth. They might get lucky and invent their way out of this. Yes, worst-case scenario, we could be in for a long and difficult time, and we each have to ask ourselves how we would handle that. How "resilient" are we? On the other hand, I read a lot about technology and there is a ton of good stuff happening or about to happen. Big technological breakthroughs in medicine, batteries, and solar panels to name just a few. On these and many other fronts I am optimistic. Actually technology and climate change are likely to disrupt the world much more than the pandemic. The difference is that the pandemic is immediate and the other two are more gradual. We are like the frog in a pot of water on the stove. Turn the heat up ever so slowly and the frog gets cooked. Turn the heat up quickly and the frog notices the change in temperature and jumps out of the pot. We are currently "reacting" with all sorts of things with the pandemic but we could well boil to death with climate and technological changes. Currently, the stock market seems to be ignoring bad news in the belief that the economy will be able to rebound pretty quickly as restrictions are lifted. I'm not convinced that the market is a good indicator of anything right at the moment - other than the usual mix of greed and fear. What should one do in such an environment? Well, that depends upon your timeframe and your objectives for that timeframe. There is no question that there is a greater degree of uncertainty about many things in the world today and this elevated degree of uncertainty is likely to continue for quite some time - possibly years. There will be winners and losers as there always are during times of uncertainty and change. Some people are excited about all the opportunities that periods of change create. Me, I am normally one of those excited about periods of change, but at 77 I have to start thinking differently. "Resiliency" and "flexibility" should become my new guiding principles. As a friend of similar age to myself recently said, "I have lived through many market cycles in my lifetime and have done well at the end of the day, but I'm not sure I will live long enough to see the end of this cycle". In spite of the challenges ahead, there will be lots of opportunities too. With a little bit more "resiliency and flexibility" in your lives, you will do well. Here is a link to the Washington Post article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/05/08/coronavirus-economic-recovery-disaster/?arc404=true
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The advantages of the pure Bluetooth Tracing App is that it does not collect personal info including location. It also is much more accurate at detecting close proximity to others.
The disadvantages are: It is dependent on a high degree of voluntary participation, it can be slow to flag hot spots, and it does not allow data analysis for predicting and warning people of hot spots. I have just learned about a Canadian development which is in effect a hybrid system. I don't know all the details since it is not commercial nor is there a similar commercial system anywhere in the world to my knowledge. It works similar to the Bluetooth system described previously but in addition to exchanging tokens, it also exchanges encrypted time and location info. This immediately raises privacy concerns for many people. They have a novel way of addressing the privacy aspect. The encrypted info is not collected into a centralized database as the pure GPS systems are. They use a mesh network of servers. The data is shuffled and handed off to another server which in turn shuffles the data and hands it off to yet another server repeatedly. In order to breach such a system, hackers would have to simultaneously hack several different servers, a virtually impossible task. And even then the data is still encrypted. The system would also continuously delete old info, say 30 days or so. The other novel and brilliant aspect is applying Artificial Intelligence (AI) to analyse the data to determine high-risk areas and movements of people. The system would not have to wait for someone to be diagnosed to get an alert. If someone was in high-risk areas for more than a certain amount of time, the AI system may alert certain individuals to self-isolate. Such a system would much more responsive to Covid-19 outbreaks and may even be smart enough to figure out high-risk areas where there may be asymptomatic individuals. Such a system could dramatically reduce the spread of Covid-19 or similar viruses. If the system actually does work the way I have described, I would be very comfortable using it. Indeed, I would consider it my civic duty to do so. There is a lot in the news lately about Tracking and Tracing Apps for your smartphone.
Most people seem to think they are essentially the same thing and that they mean "tracking" wherever you go. They are not the same at all. One tracks your location and one does not. One is centralized and one is decentralized. There are two different app technologies:
The Bluetooth Tracing app is the one being proposed in Canada.
It is so important for people to understand this difference between Tracking and Tracing. While no system is perfect, the Bluetooth app is MUCH more secure. It does rely on voluntary participation, however, once people understand that they are NOT being TRACKED with the app, they are much more likely to use it. Tracing Covid-19 in this way can dramatically decrease its spread and make it safer for everyone. This does not replace the manual tracing system but it can be a powerful additional tool in fighting Covid-19. |
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